Our recently tutorial on InvoicePlane showed students and new users how to install it on Ubuntu with Apache2 HTTP and PHP 7.1 support… This post shows students and new users how to do it with Nginx and PHP 7.1-FPM instead….

When you want to install InvoicePlane with Nginx, the steps below should be a great place to start…

Invoice Plane is an open source online app that allows users and busineses to manage their complete billing cicle from invoicing to quotes and payments…. This platform is built on the LAMP or LEMP stack and can used to provide CRM-like management for individuals and businesses….

Whether you’re a small or medium-size business, you may find this app useful… It’s designed from the ground up for ease of use to allow business owners create and manage their business invoices and expenses….

If you’re looking for a robust, secure and easy to use invoicing and time tracking system with multi-language interface, you may want to give Invoice a try… This brief tutorial is going to show students and new users how to install Invoice Plane on Ubuntu 16.04 | 18.04 with Nginx, MariaDB and PHP 7.1 support.

To get started with installing Invoice Plane, follow the steps below:

Step 1: Install Nginx HTTP Server on Ubuntu

Nginx HTTP Server is the most popular web server in use… so install it, since Invoice Plane needs it..

To install Nginx HTTP on Ubuntu server, run the commands below…

sudo apt update
sudo apt install nginx

After installing Nginx, the commands below can be used to stop, start and enable Nginx service to always start up with the server boots.

To test Nginx setup, open your browser and browse to the server hostname or IP address and you should see Nginx default test page as shown below.. When you see that, then Nginx is working as expected..

http://localhost

Step 2: Install MariaDB Database Server

MariaDB database server is a great place to start when looking at open source database servers to use with Magento… To install MariaDB run the commands below…

sudo apt-get install mariadb-server mariadb-client

After installing MariaDB, the commands below can be used to stop, start and enable MariaDB service to always start up when the server boots..

Step 3: Restart Nginx

After installing PHP and related modules, all you have to do is restart Nginx to reload PHP configurations… To restart Nginx, run the commands below

sudo systemctl restart nginx.service

Step 4: Create Invoice Plane Database

Now that you’ve installed all the packages that are required for Invoice Plane to function, continue below to start configuring the servers. First run the commands below to create a blank Magento database.

Change the URL for the portal… by running the commands below to open its config file…

sudo nano /var/www/html/InvoicePlane/ipconfig.php

Then make the URL change as shown below and save the file…

### START HERE
# Set your URL without trailing slash here, e.g. http://your-domain.com
# If you use a subdomain, use http://subdomain.your-domain.com
# If you use a subfolder, use http://your-domain.com/subfolder
IP_URL= http://example.com

Then run the commands below to set the correct permissions for Invoice Plane to function.

Step 6: Configure Nginx

Finally, configure Apahce2 site configuration file for Invoice Plane. This file will control how users access Invoice Plane content. Run the commands below to create a new configuration file called invoiceplane

sudo nano /etc/nginx/sites-available/invoiceplane

Then copy and paste the content below into the file and save it. Replace the highlighted line with your own domain name and directory root location.

Step 7: Enable the Invoice Plane and Rewrite Module

Then open your browser and browse to the server domain name. You should see Invoice Plane setup wizard to complete. Please follow the wizard carefully.

http://example.com/index.php/setup/

Then follow the on-screen instructions… you will be asked to input your database configuration, administrative details and other configuration settings. When complete you may sign-in and start using Invoice Plane.